


sing those songs for me

by eachandeverydimension



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Prejudice, F/M, James T. Kirk/Carol Marcus (past) - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22278922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eachandeverydimension/pseuds/eachandeverydimension
Summary: At birth, Spock’s daemon is a kitten. For a large portion of his childhood, T’Lena remains that way.Or: A retelling of the first movie with daemons.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Carol Marcus, James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 18
Kudos: 184





	1. the way you talk is like a song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iateyouroreos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iateyouroreos/gifts).



> Just a fair warning, this work is unfinished and will in all likelihood remain unfinished.
> 
> I'm just posting my unfinished Daemon!AU Spirk fic because it deserves to see the light of day.
> 
> The first chapter focuses on Spock and the second on Jim.

In the first recorded Vulcan-human contact, Vulcans had responded with disbelief and confusion at the human’s claim that the feline animal next to it was in fact part of the human’s soul. It seemed utterly illogical, to carry such a vulnerable part of oneself in such a blatant fashion, such that any enemies looking to strike you down could easily do so. The first-contact Vulcans decided that humans had illogic and irrationality written into their genetic codes, and reported as much to the Vulcan Council. Attitudes towards humans have largely not changed since first contact.

A person’s first daemon is usually not indicative of their personality. The final settled form of a daemon is the strongest indicator of an individual’s traits, although that is also not ironclad. Studies have shown that within ninety percent of births, the first form the infant’s daemon takes is influenced by the mother. This may be due to an unknown genetic link, or perhaps transference while in the womb. Others have hypothesized that this is to allow the mother’s daemon to also contribute to the rearing of the infant.

Amanda Grayson’s daemon is a Maine coon, a handsome tabby with fur the colour of Vulcan sand. When Spock is born, she doesn’t know whether to expect a daemon or not. The scientists from the Vulcan Science Academy can tell her Spock’s adult height, and whether his blood will be copper-based, but even Earth scientists have been unable to pin down what exactly causes a daemon to appear at birth.

When she wakes after the birth and asks for her child, the Vulcan nurses have a look of uncertainty and discomfort on their faces. For a moment, Amanda dreads that the VSA’s best work was for naught: humans and Vulcans weren’t meant to hybridise after all.

Then the nurse hands her a small bundle carefully, and Amanda almost laughs with joy: Spock is perfect, _perfect_. And there’s a small white kitten nuzzled up against him in the swaddling.

At birth, Spock’s daemon is a kitten. For a large portion of his childhood, T’Lena remains that way.

His earliest memory is this: a still evening spent beside a window with his mother, their daemons basking in the fading sun streaming through. He can feel a curl of contentment through his bond with T’Lena, and when he tentatively touches his bond with his mother, a sense of serenity and peace seep through. Spock remembers the quiet sound of his mother’s voice, can remember with crystal clarity that he thought her accent was much lovelier than that of other Vulcans. Her human voice softened the harsh Vulcan syllables, and it was soothing to Spock, to hear this voice he had grown up with. She was reading something to him, but Spock could no longer remember what it was.

It is a memory he revisits often over the course of his life, especially when he is in need of some comfort and peace.

When Spock begins his first year of schooling, many events occur. Most significantly, Spock gets into a physical altercation with other Vulcan children, and T’Lena loses her kitten form.

T’Lena’s small, pure-white form is immediately visible wherever Spock goes, whether it is the brushed steel walls of the Academy, or the red sands of the desert.

The other children mock Spock relentlessly for carrying his soul outside of him. They claim it shows that he is incomplete, that it betrays his human heritage.

The encounter does not end well. T’Lena’s fur bristles and she growls as best she can with her small form. This only makes Sanak even smugger, which infuriates Spock even more. Spock ends up with a split lip. When Amanda turns up, eyes full of worry, it is to find Spock sitting sullenly, with T’Lena curled in his lap.

Spock’s father admonishes him.

“Such behaviour is unbecoming of one descended from Surak. You will not repeat it.”

Spock had a near encyclopaedic knowledge of Terran animals, and as he braced himself for the Enterprise to go into warp, a small part of his mind absently noted that Lieutenant Sulu’s daemon was a Japanese Imperial Butterfly, before turning to his station. When the ship failed to join the rest of the fleet at Vulcan, Spock, like many others in the bridge, turned inquiring glances towards the lieutenant. His daemon fluttered near the helmsman’s ear, seemingly flustered, and although it was small, the purple and brown spotted form was easy to see, even from Spock’s station behind the captain’s chair.

It was illogical to waste any more time lagging behind the rest of the fleet, especially when the Enterprise was its flagship. Spock suggests that external inertial dampener be disengaged, and turns his attention to his duties.

After they warp to Vulcan and the entire bridge crew is faced with the shattered remnants of the rest of the fleet, Spock doesn’t pay any more attention to daemons at all, until Jim Kirk marches onto the bridge, scarlet macaw in his wake shining like a beacon.


	2. the way you smile is like a movie

There are crates and crates of stuff crammed in the dusty attic corners of the farmhouse. Some of it has been here since Grandma and Grandpa Kirk were kids, the crumbling yellow cardboard telling its age. Another pile of plastic crates is newer, packed and tucked out of sight by Jim’s mom after she returned from space with another son but missing a husband.

Most of the boxes are boring, really: school textbooks that Jim half-heartedly flips through, faded ticket stubs to movies and plays, dried out pens and outdated PADDs. But still, no matter how mundane, Jim is drawn to the detritus of his father’s life.

From age ten to twelve Jim spends countless hours in the attic breathing in musty stale air, poring over each and every detail of George Kirk’s life until he knows it forwards and backwards. Mom is off in space somewhere, and the kids in school won’t talk to Jim, so this is how he spends his free time. Lyssie is always there, sometimes reading over his shoulder, other times scurrying through other boxes in mouse form.

For all that Jim’s never met the man, he’s pretty sure he could be considered an expert on George Kirk. He knows what he scribbles in the margins of his notebooks when he’s bored (dinosaurs), what movie he went to see in the cinema three times (a remake of American Gods - his mom’s favourite movie). He knows exactly how he writes his name: his letters cramped and spiky, the G and K capitalised and twice the height of the other letters.

But when Jim puts on the Starfleet cadet uniform for the first time, it’s a picture he found that he thinks of. In it, George is standing proud and straight at parade rest in front the Federation map, his oriole daemon perched on the shoulder closer to the camera. She’s a slender bird, barely reaching up to George’s ear, and her plumage is a bright striking yellow the exact shade of George’s command shirt, except for her dark wings and a black band around her eyes. There’s a faint smile on George’s lips that’s echoed in the tilt of the oriole’s beak and the brightness of her eyes.

On the back George had scribbled a message to Winona:

_Dear Winnie, Happy Graduation. Meet me at the Onraet, 830pm. I love you. G._

Later that night, as the two of them stumbled from the bar back to their dorms tipsy and effervescent, George pretended to tie his shoelaces, and asked Winona to marry him. Jim’s grandma loved to tell him this story, of how George had asked for the Kirk heirloom wedding ring and his parents’ blessings during his summer break, and held onto both for half a year before the moment was right.

Winona had kept it all these years tucked in the middle of her Starfleet yearbook. She kept all of George’s old stuff, because she couldn’t bear to see it, but she couldn’t bear to throw it all away either. And Jim understands, really, why Winona ran off into space and never comes back to Earth. Jim’s never even met George but even he loves him.

Its Jim’s first day at Starfleet. He’s wearing the crimson cadet uniform and Lyssie just slapped his face with her wings again, and the colour of his uniform is a deeper red than Lyssie’s body, but he still thinks of George’s graduation picture and Jim thinks: _Am I going to make it to graduation?_

_Fuck yeah I am._

Things are going well with Grandma and Grandpa. Jim likes the farm: when he gets bored all he has to do is wander out into the verdant corn fields and lie down to look at the swaying stalks surrounding him and slowly slip into sleep. Either that or flip through the boxes in the attic a fourth time. It also helps that his mom isn’t here to give him sad looks, tears brimming in her eyes every time he so much as comes home from school.

But good things don’t last: if there’s anything Jim knows, he knows this well.

Grandma falls down one winter, and she’s stuck in bed for months until the Iowa snows end. Jim learns to make soup for himself and his grandparents. She never quite recovers. In the spring, when they have to sow the corn, she asks Jim to help. Her legs tremble when she walks and pretty soon she’s in a wheelchair. Then she dies, and Jim’s grandpa starts forgetting things, and Jim, and one day he calls Jim _George_. And Jim does the only thing he can do: he calls his mom.

Its 2221. Bones has just finished a twelve hour surgery and it did not go well, according to Christine.

(Jim has begun to make friends in Bones’ medical circle, if only to better gauge his mood. Most fun at a party and closest to Bones is Christine Chapel. His comms with Christine consist of come-ons by Jim that are summarily shut down by Christine, and numbers: 1 for ‘no one in medbay did anything dumb today/Jim did not do anything dumb today’, 5 for ‘usual pernickety self’ and 10 for ‘unprecedented level of anger that’s mostly theoretical at this point because none of them have ever seen it/Armageddon’.)

This right here is an 8: crushed because he failed his patient on the operation table.

At 2234, Bones drifts into the dorm suite he shares with Jim. Jess is keeping close to his heels and following despondently, black tail dragging on the ground.

Jim looks up from the textbook he was done reading an hour ago and says, “Hey, Bones.”

He looks like shit, usually tense brow knotted even more than usual. Jess’ honey badger form looked like her characteristic powdered-sugar coating across the top half of her body was a shroud of mourning instead.

In response, Bones gives a nod in Jim’s general direction and sits down heavily on his bed. Jess, who usually orbits Bones but maintains a careful buffer space when others are watching, climbs up and tucks herself alongside Bones’ thigh.

It’s bad.

Jim gets up from his desk and grabs a bottle of water, before sitting opposite Bones on his own bed. Lyssie followed and flapped over to perch next to Jess, beak stroking against the black fur on her foot once.

“Come on, drink this. I know how you get in marathon surgeries.”

Bones’ head is hanging in defeat, but he grasps the bottle of water Jim hands him anyway. His hands shake ever so slightly from fatigue, from hours on end of delicate and precise work. When he finishes the bottle, he’s still staring down at the floor.

Jim pries the empty bottle from Bones’ hands and sets it aside on their night-stand.

“I know nothing I say now will make you feel better, so I won’t. Just get some sleep, and things will look better in the morning, alright?” Jim nudged Bones into lying down as Lyssie did the same to Jess, and they tugged the duvet up. Bones never had gotten used to the cold in San Francisco.

The worst things happen to Jim. The absolute worst. Getting a hypo-happy roommate who stabs him with needles way too much than is necessary. Boarding the only ship in the fleet with an absolute hard-ass for a First Officer who busted Jim for so-called cheating on the Kobayashi Maru. That aforementioned First Officer then marooning Jim on some godforsaken ball of ice called Delta Vega.

And then Jim gets chased by some weird ice beast who wants a piece of Jim for lunch, or dinner, or whatever time it is on this snowy sucky sorry excuse for a planet. Which was why he was here, faced with a Vulcan stranger who claimed to be Commander Spock from the future in another universe. That was just not cool, man. Leaving aside the obvious absence of the Commander’s daemon in the tiny cave, if Jim suspended his disbelief, he could maybe see a familial resemblance between the Vulcan before him and Commander Spock.

This is the rough chronological order of what goes down on the bridge:

  * Jim says something very stupid about Spock’s mother to try and provoke him.
  * Spock deflects Jim; his eyes flash and his daemon’s tail (a sehlat, one of the few species native to Vulcan; Jim asked around after the academic hearing) whips about in a displeased manner, but his hands are still behind his back.
  * Jim tries again. This time he gets up into Spock’s face and shouts. That’s what breaks Spock’s control.
  * Spock punches Jim. Lyssie bursts into motion, claws scratching at Spock’s head before she gets distracted by Spock’s daemon.
  * Spock gets his hand around Jim’s neck; at the same time, what Lyssie is feeling filters through in flashes: a huge paw swiping her out of the air and pinning her fragile body to the ground, the ache of feathers torn out, the taste of blood in her mouth. Black starts to creep in at the edges of Jim’s vision and he can hear a screech of pain from Lyssie, feel her panicking as the pressure on her chest increases, can feel the creak of her tiny bones protesting as she scrabbles with her beak and claws and draws blood.
  * Jim has a hand stretched out to where he knows Lyssie is, there’s a vice around his neck and a rock on his chest and he’s _dying_ , _Lyssie’s dying_ ,
  * and then Spock lets go.
  * Air floods into his lungs and he coughs and there’s a flurry of feathers as Lyssie throws herself at Jim. His hands come up to cradle her even as he’s gasping for air, running his fingers over her and finding the spots where her feathers were torn out. Her claws are gripped tight into his shirt, head tucked into the crook of Jim’s neck, getting as close as possible.
  * Spock gives the command to Jim and sweeps off the bridge, his daemon limping close behind, tail tucked low. Lyssie whispers to Jim: “I’m alright, go do what you have to do,” and flaps over to perch on the captain’s chair. Jim picks up one of Lyssie’s bright red feathers scattered around the bridge in perfect counterpoint to the golden drops of sehlat blood scattered here and there.
  * Jim catches his breath. Then he sits down in the captain’s chair, twirls Lyssie’s feather in his hand and says, “Attention crew of the Enterprise…”



They say people with bird daemons are unfaithful. They say that they’re meant to be airplane pilots or starship captains; here today gone tomorrow. They say they’re flighty, they’re prone to infidelity, they can’t bear to be tied down.

‘Birds are monogamous only within a breeding season, and they find a new partner every time’ is the phrase Jim’s heard in bars more times than he can count.

‘They’re only good for one-night stands,’ he’s heard countless women counsel their girlfriends at bars, eyeing his battered leather jacket and the scarlet macaw perched on his shoulder as he nurses a Cardassian Sunrise.

Jim does his level best to live up to this stereotype from age seventeen to twenty-one.

He stops because he meets Carol Marcus.

Carol Marcus is singular, and she bursts into Jim’s life like the light of the sun. Her daemon, Galen, is a snake, a slim band of butter yellow that she keeps wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet. Carol has blonde hair, and Jim spends countless mornings staring at it spread over their pillows in the morning sun, thinking to himself, _shit I fell in love what the hell am I doing?_ before she smiles and says ‘Stop staring at me, weirdo’ and all thoughts of apprehension are dashed from Jim’s mind. Carol is unbelievably smart, and can keep up with Jim like no one else ever has, jumping from one thought to another at lightning speed. There’s a cool wit and logic to her mind that Jim appreciates, even when it runs in contrast to his own personality. Carol makes Jim thinks he can actually be a good man, like George Kirk was.

He tells her that he’s _that_ Jim Kirk, he of the dead father and absent mother. He tells her about Tarsus. He tells her things he’s never told anyone before, things he’s never even said out loud. And she listens.

Carol Marcus breaks his heart when she tells him she’s transferring to London to finish her dissertation, and she does it in that utterly pragmatic way of hers that makes Jim love her so much.

“I know you’re going to say that you’ll follow me to London. But I don’t want you to, Jim. It’s not because I don’t love you. It’s because you obviously have no path in life, and I don’t want to be the ship your lifeboat is lashed to, dragging you in whichever direction I please. Figure out what you want, and if we happen to meet again, the fates have spoken. But don’t chase after me, Jim. I love you. I don’t regret what we have.”

As the fates would have it, Jim next sees Carol Marcus when he’s greeting new crewmembers abroad the Enterprise. Because he leaves hiring in the Science department up to Spock, he is caught entirely off guard when he spots a familiar cloche of shiny blond hair in the crew line-up. There was Galen, butter-yellow form still twined around Carol’s wrist the way they preferred, that same mirthful look in Carol’s eyes. Jim had never quite been able to place the colour of them. Jim ran himself on autopilot, giving the same welcome and greetings to the new crewmembers, until he finally reached Carol.

Spock, who was standing at Jim’s side as he carried out his duties in meeting new crewmembers, said, “Captain, this is Lieutenant Carol Marcus, she will be joining the-”

“The applied physics department, with a focus on advanced weaponry.” Jim cut Spock off, smile growing on his face. “Hey, Carol.”

“Hi Jim. It’s been while.” Carol’s head tilted, and she had a fond look on her face.

“Oh my god, come here!” Jim gathered her into a hug. Her head still fit perfectly under his chin, and he gave Carol a small squeeze before letting her go.

“How have you been? I mean, what happened after London?” Jim exclaimed.

“That’s a story for another time, I think,” Carol shot a look at the curious crewmembers still in line behind them. “I’ll see you around, Captain.” She snapped a salute, and headed off in the same direction other science officers had gone.

“Is Lieutenant Marcus a previous acquaintance of yours, Captain?” Spock inquired. Jim was still turned in the direction that Carol had gone.

“Something like that, yeah. Ex-girlfriend,” Jim said absentmindedly.

He missed the slight furrowing of Spock’s brow.

Jim plunges into the water and all he sees is air bubbles rising in cerulean water before he instinctively closes his eyes. Panic grips his chest: not because he can’t swim, but because of Lyssie. Scarlet macaws were built for puddles in rainforests, not for oceans. Clawing at the water around him, he manages to burst out of the surface of the ocean. He’s gasping and his eyes sting from the salt, but he’s treading water as best he can and looking for any signs of Lyssie in the water around him. She can’t be far off, but _where_ exactly – then Jim finds her floating, frozen stock-still on the water surface and sinking every second. She’s tried to gain buoyancy by spreading her wings out along the water, but with every wave that sweeps over her, her feathers get soaked further and it takes longer to bob out of the water.

“Lyssie!” Jim shouts.

There’s just enough time for Lyssie to turn towards Jim and open her beak before a huge wave sweeps over her and drags her in the riptide.

Fear crashes into Jim, and he can feel the phantom sensation of water filling his lungs and waterlogged feathers dragging him down. He pushes it all aside and starts a breast stroke towards where Lyssie last was, trying to sense where she is with their connection.

Finally, _finally_ , he spots her submerged in the ocean. She’s flapping her wings in vain, powerful muscles that serve her well in the air next to useless in the water. In two beats Jim has scooped her up and brings her to the surface, where she gasps for breath and shivers against Jim. There’s nowhere for Lyssie to perch, and her feathers are so wet that she can’t fly, so Jim does the only thing he can do: plop her on his head. Her powerful claws scratch against his scalp and grip fiercely onto Jim’s hair.

“Ow, Lyssie. Not so hard, you’re gonna give me a bald spot!”

Now that his daemon is safe, Jim finally has the chance to look around for his crew. Most of the members of the away team, like Jim, had been using the time to find and cling on to their daemons. A security officer bobbed ten feet away from Jim, his golden retriever daemon treading the water skilfully beside him. Others had spent their time to help their fellow shipmates, those daemons more adept in the water helping the less buoyant stay afloat. Another security officer was in a similar position as Jim, her Iberian lynx daemon sopping wet and clinging miserable to her shoulders. They shared a commiserating look from across the water.

Maybe thirty feet away from him, Jim could see Spock. He and his daemon were doing a fair job of keeping afloat, for two individuals crafted for a desert climate.

“Hey, Spock.”

Jim walks into the bathroom he shares with his first officer. Spock is already there, fastidiously brushing out his hair. T’Lena is standing behind Spock, sandy fur in disarray from sleep.

“Good morning, Captain.”

Jim yawns and moves over to the sink to splash some water on his face. Spock moves automatically to the side, so that they’re sharing the sink and the mirror above it. Lyssie flaps from her usual perch at Jim’s shoulder as he leans down, and finds purchase again on the top of T’Lena’s head. T’Lena shakes her head huffily, but doesn’t dislodge Lyssie.

“Was the quality of your sleep less than ideal, Captain?”

Jim stares at himself in the mirror for a while. He was never a morning person.

“Nah, I was just finishing up some reports so I got in late. The fabulous life of a starship captain, eh?”

Most stereotypes about daemons were bullshit. Jim knew, having been on the receiving end of many a remark about the alleged promiscuity of people with bird daemons. Yeah, Jim was a manwhore, but that was because he liked sex, not because his daemon just happened to be of the family Aves. All that crap about sexual orientation being related to daemon gender was crap as well. There had been countless studies ranging the full spectrum of sexual orientations and gender identities, and none found a quantifiable link between a person’s gender and the person or people they loved. And yet, bigots still beat children with daemons of the same gender, and left them on the roadsides.

Kodos had been one of those people. In his cull of the Tarsus IV colonists, the first to go had been the sick and old. After that, it was those who didn’t fit Kodos’ idea of what the ideal person ought to be. Those with below average intelligence, congenital diseases, with bad blood in their families. And those with daemons of the same gender.

Jim’s Grandma used to tell him that Kirks look the way they do because of the corn they grow. She tells him the same story every time Jim pushes between the rows of corn to hide amongst the bushels. His hair and colouring blends into the earth, and the floppy green corn leaves blot out the sun, so he’s all but invisible. Lyssie sticks out some, depending on her form, but Jim always blends right in except for his bright blue eyes. He’d lie on his back, cloud-watching and listening to the corn grow. It was a soft crackling sound that filled Jim’s head like static. Now when he lays in bed on the Enterprise and can’t sleep, he imagines that sound.

When he finally emerges, it’s usually evening, and Grandma will be waiting with dinner in the kitchen. She never chastises him, just tells him the same story:

“Y’know Jimmy, us Kirks have lived in Riverside for hundreds of years. And we all got hair yellow as corn and eyes blue as the sky. Back when any wars broke out, we’d hide in the corn fields and close our eyes and pray no one would find us in the fields. And no one did. These corn fields keep Kirks safe, Jimmy. If your daddy had stayed in Iowa, they woulda kept him safe too. He blended into those fields better than anyone, with that bird of his.”

Years later, Jim comes back to the farm after the Narada and stands in the middle of the corn field. He’s grown taller in the intervening years, and if he cranes his neck, he can look back towards the red farmhouse where he spent half his childhood. Perched on his shoulder, Lyssie’s head sticks out above the stalks of corn. Her scarlet colour is striking amongst the field of green and she stands out like a beacon; there’s no way she could blend into the fields.

She says, “I never remembered it being so small.”

“Me too,” Jim says.

Nothing can compare to the vastness of space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we have it! Everything I wrote for this Spirk Daemon!AU.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading it!

**Author's Note:**

> Work and chapter titles from Red Velvet's LP.


End file.
